THE JOURNEY HOME

There was a time when I believed healing came through doing more.

Like many teachers, I wanted to help people become stronger, more flexible and more capable. Progress was measured by how far we could move, how deeply we could stretch, or what the body could achieve through effort.

Over the years, however, something began to change—not only in the people who came to my classes, but within myself.

The students arriving in front of me were rarely lacking discipline or determination. More
often, they were carrying invisible burdens. Busy minds. Held breath. Bodies that had
forgotten what it felt like to truly rest.

Many of them came seeking relief from pain, stress or exhaustion, believing—as I once did—that the answer lay in doing more.

Gradually, I began to realise that true wellbeing is not something we achieve.

It is something we inhabit.

It is not another task to complete or another goal to pursue. It is a quiet returning to ourselves.

Like many people, my own life has included periods of deep hurt and uncertainty. For many
years I searched for answers, wondering why certain experiences had happened and trying to understand how to move beyond them.

Looking back now, I rarely think about those years.

Not because they have been forgotten, but because they no longer define me.

Healing did not arrive through forcing myself to become someone different.

It arrived through learning to soften, to listen, and gradually to release what no longer
belonged to me.

Then life offered another unexpected teacher.

A serious leg injury brought me into a season of enforced stillness.

For someone accustomed to movement, it was both challenging and humbling.

Yet it was during that quiet time that I discovered something I had overlooked for years.

The body is remarkably wise when we stop trying to manage it.

Given patience, safety and compassionate attention, it begins to show us the way home.

That experience transformed not only the way I practised, but the way I taught.

I became less interested in performance and more interested in presence.

Less concerned with perfect alignment and more curious about how a movement felt from the inside.

I began guiding people towards awareness rather than achievement, discovering that many bodies were not asking to be pushed further—they were asking for permission to let go.

During this same period, the books I had carried within me for decades finally found their
way onto the page.

Writing became another form of listening.

The ideas behind The Soma Awakens and Release were not created overnight. They grew
slowly through years of teaching, observing, studying, and learning from the people who trusted me with their stories.

Those students continue to be my greatest teachers.

Every class reminds me that no two bodies are the same.

Every conversation deepens my understanding that healing is rarely about fixing ourselves.
More often, it is about remembering the wholeness that has quietly been there all along.

Today my teaching blends yoga, somatic awareness, nervous system regulation and deep rest.

Not because I believe I have found a perfect method, but because I have witnessed what can happen when people feel safe enough to truly inhabit themselves.

Many of us imagine that peace exists somewhere else.

On a mountain.

Beside a still lake.

At the end of another achievement.

Yet I have come to believe that the haven we seek through searching has always been quietly waiting within us, holding a gentle lamp that never went out.

Sometimes all we need is the courage to pause long enough to notice its light.

If my classes, my books or these reflections offer anything, I hope it is simply this:

A reminder that you do not have to become someone else to find wellbeing.

Perhaps you only need a quiet space in which to remember who you have always been.

May you find moments of stillness that remind you the journey home has never been
measured in distance, only in awareness.

Lala Menen
Author. Somatics Practitioner. Nervous System Healing. Yoga Teacher